Been lurking for a couple weeks now, and finally got a solid idea to write. First TF2 fanfic, hopefully I'm not doin' it wrong. In the beginning, this was just supposed to be some Heavy/Medic hurt/comfort bittersweetness, and then the dang thing went and grew on me, giving me ideas for other teammates as well. Oh dear.... Hope y'all enjoy! ~~~ Nightmares Every strong man has a weakness. It is one thing every member of the team had been taught, at some point in their lives. Along with that knowledge came the fact that the deeper the crack, the softer the underbelly, the more the man will hide it. The peak of psychological warfare is to find your enemy’s weaknesses and ruthlessly exploit them. But the key to working as a team is to acknowledge the weaknesses of the others around you, and work out a way to deal. Nobody on the RED team lived perfect lives before signing on. Everyone had something, a soft core of something painful, hidden deep inside of them. They dealt very differently, but they dealt, and the team adapted. Their new Scout was the youngest of eight children. Four of his brothers had been drafted to fight in Vietnam. Any time they were in a town with a radio or a television, Scout was in front of it; his usual boastful machismo gone, his face strained with worry. Nobody knew all of Sniper’s secrets, but the late-night phone arguments with his parents were impossible to ignore. The one time Demoman had brought it up, nobody saw anything of Sniper except his laser sight for the next three days. There were even mornings when Spy would show up to breakfast looking like death warmed over; unshowered, unshaven, with nervous, haunted eyes. On those mornings, he was more likely to shoot at Medic from the first “guten morgen†than he was to put cream in his coffee. Medic had learned to recognize the signs and make himself scarce. Spy never talked about it, but from his reaction to the German, everyone knew his demons came from the war. Nobody on the team was immune to their memories. Everyone broke down at some point. Some preferred to keep their fears locked up and away. Others, like Scout, would talk if pressed. And in fact, Engineer had made a habit of going into town with Scout, so that if the boy did overhear something on the radio, he would have a teammate to lean on if he needed it. Scout always brushed this aside with a dismissive snort and a shrug of his shoulders, but there were a few times the two had returned from town with Engineer’s hand on Scout’s shoulder, the boy’s face pale. Of anyone, Heavy and Medic, always together on and off the battlefield, appeared the least affected by their previous lives before RED. Some of the other teammates whispered that Medic’s detached attitude towards the last few decades could simply be an act to get under Spy’s skin. Some thought that the German whom they’d all good-naturedly ribbed for being a Nazi…maybe had been, and was laying low under this assumed, nameless identity. And as for Heavy, it always seemed that nothing could faze the big Russian. That wasn’t what Medic saw, although admittedly his role in the Russian’s life gave him unique insight. It didn’t happen often, but Heavy was no more detached from his past than anyone else. Three times now in the time they’d shared a bed, Medic had dealt with Heavy’s dreams of the gulag where he and his family had been sentenced to work themselves to death. He’d once been awakened by Heavy’s strong arms nearly crushing the air from his body as he spoke in halting Russian that Medic had no hope of understanding. He’d felt a few hot tears against his shoulder, but had said nothing, understanding well the need for release. Later, after Medic calmed him down, Heavy confessed that the nightmare had started with a memory burned into his brain; watching his father held between two police officers as a third put a rifle to the back of his head and fired. As for Medic himself, if his teammates ever found out how close to the truth they were, the German wasn’t sure what he’d do to survive it. He’d been ashamed before at how often his nightmares woke him, as opposed to his lover’s. Heavy, at first, knew better than to ask and would simply wrap his Doktor in a warm embrace and say nothing as Medic fought himself for control. If the older man gave in, sobbing hoarsely against Heavy’s broad chest, he would soothe him without pressing. The Russian had always trusted that his strong, willful lover would speak when he was ready. But as the months wore on and Medic still wouldn’t put a name to his night terrors, Heavy began to gently push. At first the German resisted, accepting the physical comfort and reassurance that his lover offered but brushing off the leading questions he asked. Heavy was nothing if not determined. Very, very slowly, he began to crack through Medic’s walls and learn the truth. Medic was never a Nazi. He’d never been a member of the Party, but neither had he been part of the resistance to it. Like so many others of his nation, he’d been relieved to see Germany begin to resurface from the wreck of the First World War He was lucky enough to escape recruitment into the Hitler Youth by virtue of his dark hair and middle class parentage. Instead of becoming a soldier for the Third Reich, Medic became a scientist, the brightest in his class. He’d thought nothing of it when the government had offered him a post at a work camp, Dachau, in 1939. He was fresh out of university and it was an irresistible offer; the money was good and after a year he would be granted an honorary medical degree. He was told that as part of a new program, political prisoners were being given a chance to redeem themselves by participating in voluntary medical studies. That illusion had been short-lived. However, once you were working for a fascist government, you couldn’t just stop. If anything, the procedures he was inflicting on prisoners strapped to examination tables made him even more determined to keep his head down and simply do his job. He “accidentally†killed a few patients whenever he thought he could get away with it, and he’d dared to hope that they were grateful for the release. They haunted his dreams now. He’d committed atrocities, he knew this, and his heart felt the weight of them. He tried to tell himself that he was not a bad man, a sentiment that Heavy would echo to him in the dark as he held the gasping, guilt-wracked German in his arms. But intentions notwithstanding, Medic knew what he had done, and knew that eventually, his soul would have to pay the price. He dreamed sometimes that the Respawn system failed, sending him to his death, and his soul to damnation. He dreamed of hell, imagined tortures and punishments waiting for him… Now, despite the risks, knowing each other’s weaknesses only makes them that much closer. Medic warms the Russian when he wakes from dreams of long nights spent freezing half to death in Siberia with no heat. Heavy does his best to convince his Doktor that he is no monster, that knowing his secrets does not make Heavy wary of him, or cause his love to waver. More than once, he has told the older man that if Respawn ever does fail, he will be right behind him, following him to Hell if he must, so that Medic will not have to suffer alone. It’s a dark promise, but for now it’s not one that either man has to think about. It’s their method of coping, and everyone has their own. Scout has his constant news updates, Soldier his constant drilling, and Demoman his constant drinking. Pyro loses himself in the warmth of flame, while Engineer prefers getting lost in blueprints and prototypes… The entire team deals, the entire team adapts. And even though the nights can sometimes be bitter, the mornings bring their friendships to light again, and help keep the nightmares at bay.